Rating

Description

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole introduces The Arcana Chronicles, post-apocalyptic tales filled with riveting action, the dark mysticism of Tarot cards, and breathtaking romance. She could save the world—or destroy it.

Sixteen year old Evangeline “Evie” Greene leads a charmed life, until she begins experiencing horrifying hallucinations. When an apocalyptic event decimates her Louisiana hometown, Evie realizes her hallucinations were actually visions of the future—and they’re still happening. Fighting for her life and desperate for answers, she must turn to her wrong-side-of-the-bayou classmate: Jack Deveaux.

But she can’t do either alone.

With his mile-long rap sheet, wicked grin, and bad attitude, Jack is like no boy Evie has ever known. Even though he once scorned her and everything she represented, he agrees to protect Evie on her quest. She knows she can’t totally depend on Jack. If he ever cast that wicked grin her way, could she possibly resist him?

Who can Evie trust?

As Jack and Evie race to find the source of her visions, they meet others who have gotten the same call. An ancient prophesy is being played out, and Evie is not the only one with special powers. A group of twenty-two teens has been chosen to reenact the ultimate battle between good and evil. But it’s not always clear who is on which side….

Review

Evie and Jack reminded me a lot of a teenage Mackayla and Jericho from Karen Marie Moning’s Feverseries. A lot. Evie starts out as this Southern beauty with a sweet if superficial disposition who begins seeing things that can’t be real–terrifying things. Jack is the wordly wise bad boy without an inch of softness. He’s ruthless and hard and he forces Evie to survive in the new world they find themselves in. Like Mackayla, Evie isn’t a shrinking violet. She surprises Jack again and again with her tenacity and resourcefulness. He mocks her and expects her to break, when she never does, we start to see the hidden depths of Jack.

With a couple as seemingly mismatched as Evie and Jack–she’s practically Southern royalty, he’s a dirt poor Cajun with a criminal record–you can imagine the romance was anything but simple. It was a slow simmering heat that fought through prejudice, mistrust, jealousy, survival needs, and enemies at every turn. But Cole knows how to deliver romance, and in POISON PRINCESS, she shows that younger characters can fall just as hard—and they take their readers with them.

As delectable as the romance was, part of the reason it worked so well was because of the raw and frightening post-apocalyptic world they were thrust into. There are slavers and cannibals, magic and zombies, dust storms and drought. Food and water are almost as scarce as women after the Flash. It’s as treacherous a landscape as you can imagine, and all the while that they are traveling, Evie is plagued by visions and burgeoning abilities that are potentially more dangerous than the world around her.

POISON PRINCESS is a brilliant debut that will snare readers of all ages with its vivid post-apocalyptic world, engrossing romance, and novel magic based on Tarot cards. The next book in The Arcana Chronicles just shot to the top of my wishlist.

Christen

I’m so glad someone else saw the similarities. I thought this book would be good coming from Kresley Cole, but it was so much better than I even expected. Bring on the sequel 🙂

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ATUF Rating System

Buy two copies: one for you and one for a friend.
Loved it! Buy it now & put this author on your watch list.
A fun read with minor flaws. Maybe read an excerpt before buying.
A few good points, but with significant flaws. Library/swap/borrow if you want.
I had to force myself to finish it. Fatally flawed on multiple levels.

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